Sunday, July 13, 2014

My Chromebook Follies Begin

Dissatisfied with an endless succession of Windows laptops, each lasting a year or two before slowing down maddeningly (and factory refresh helps only a little bit) I decided to give the Chromebook a try.
There were several models and manufacturers to choose from; I went with an offer that included free T-Mobile access for the life of the machine, at the rate of 200 Mg per month. That's not a lot of bytes if I'm watching movies, but if I'm doing text-only stuff it would suffice as a fill-in between coffee shops and whatnot. I'm hopeful that I can save money by cutting back on the cost of internet services!
When I opened the Chromebook up out of the box, I tinkered with it a bit and saw that I could access the internet as "Guest". I'm not sure whether this is coming out of my 200 Mg a month since I haven't registered anything, but I'll check later. It is "only" a 3G connection, which a couple years ago would have been considered blazingly fast, so I'm fairly content.
This is my first blog posting on the chromebook; let's see if I can use it to keep a decent journal.
Today I drove Kris to Pilates, as usual. I suppose it's good for her, but the $60 a week she spends on it is about as much as the Y membership for a month. I have a policy of keeping my mouth shut about money but the next time she complains about never having money, it might be a kindness to bring this up.
I needed cat food and kitty litter (for the cats - not me) so we stopped at Fred Meyer's on the way back. She picked up a ton of baking materials for cooking she was making for a bake sale tomorrow. I paid.
It's hot, and I spent much of the day napping or otherwise resting.
Otherwise it was all experimenting with this Chromebook. I got the 4freeCLE newsletter out on time, and I suppose my next task is to copy it to this blog as is my habit. I set up my route for tomorrow - it's very satisfying to have that all prepared - and discovered that I can access my google docs without much trouble. Printing is something I didn't get figured out; somehow I have to identify my printed as being in the cloud, which it very much is not; but I'm content to let that be tomorrow's problem. I just emailed my route to my old laptop and printed it that way - how quaint!
Kris gave me one of each kind of cookie, and then set off to Big Al's. I wanted to see if the Chrome book works in other locations, so I biked there, ordered a Blonde, and confirmed that reception was fine. Kris was inside so I went outside and had a nice chat with John and the others about this and that. I road home just in time to see Marcia and Atty bike off, so Wendy and I chatted about gardens, family and nothing at all for about 20 minutes. I got a look at the compressor for their heat pump, which was not at all obstrusive - it had been there for an extended period, and I just hadn't noticed.
Sunday is a day of rest, so I'm not sad that I mostly rested.